population, when mingled with the great predominant race inhabiting
the northern part of this continent. Whenever colonists settle among
a different nation, in such numbers and so closely together that
they may live on among themselves, without intermixture with the
original inhabitants, a variety of inconveniences will necessarily
arise. Living in an isolated state, the current of civilization of the
country in which they live does not reach them; and they are equally
cut off from that of their mother country: mental stagnation is the
consequence. They remain a foreign element, an ill-joined part of the
great machinery of which they still form, and needs must form, a part.
Sometimes, indeed, particular circumstances may alter the view of the
case. When the French Protestant colonists were received into Prussia,
it was perhaps judicious to allow them, for example in Berlin, to form
for a time a community for themselves, to have their own jurisdiction,
schools, and churches, because they were more perfect in many branches
of industry than the people among whom they settled; and, had they been
obliged to immerge forthwith, their skill, so desirable to those who
received them, might have been lost.
At present, however, they too are immerged in the mass of the
population. Besides, the inconvenience arising from their forming a
separate community was never very great, since they were few in number,
and belonged by their professions to the better educated classes. But
take an example in the Hussites, who settled in Germany; remember the
Bohemian village near Berlin, called Rixdorf, the inhabitants of which
obstinately refused intermarrying with Germans, and many of whom, until
very recently, continued to speak Bohemian only. Those, therefore, who
lately proposed to form a whole German state in our west, ought to
weigh well their project before they set about it, if ever it should
become possible to put this scheme into practice, which I seriously
doubt. “Ossification,” as the Germans call it, would be the unavoidable
consequence. These colonists would be unable, though they might come
by thousands and tens of thousands, to develop for themselves German
literature, German language, German law, German science, German art;
everything would remain stationary at the point where it was when they
brought it over from the mother country, and within less than fifty
years our colony would degenerate into an antiquated, ill-adapted
element of our great national system, with which, sooner or later, it
must assimilate. What a voluntary closing of the eyes to light would it
be for a colony among people of the Anglican race, which, in point of
politics, has left every other race far behind, to strive to isolate
itself!
POLITICAL LIBERTY IN AMERICA
As a thousand things co-operated in ancient Greece to produce that
unrivalled state of perfection in which we find the fine arts to have
been there,--a happy constellation of the most fortunate stars,--so a
thousand favorable circumstances concur in America to make it possible
that a far greater amount of liberty can be introduced into all the
concerns of her political society than ever was possible before with
any other nation, or will be at any future period, yet also requiring
its sacrifices, as the fine arts with the Greeks required theirs.
The influence of this nation has been considerable already; it will be
much more so yet in ages to come; political ideas will be developed
here, and have a decided effect on the whole European race, and, for
aught I know, upon other races. But as the Grecian art has kindled the
sense of the beautiful with many nations, but never could be equalled
again (as a national affair), so it is possible that political notions,
developed here and received by other nations, will have a sound
influence only if in their new application they are modified to the
given circumstances; for it is not in the power of any man or nation to
create all those circumstances under the shade of which liberty reposes
here. Politics is civil architecture, and a poor architect indeed is
he who forgets three things in building: the place where the building
is to be raised, the materials with which he has to build, and the
object for which the structure is erected. If the materials are Jews
of Palestine, and if the object of the fabric be to keep the people as
separate from neighbors as possible, the architect would not obtain his
end by a constitution similar to that of one of our new States.
It was necessary for the Americans, in order to make them fit to solve
certain political problems, which, until their solution here, were
considered chimerical (take as an instance the keeping of this immense
country without a garrison), that they should descend from the English,
should begin as persecuted colonists severed from the mother country,
and yet loving it with all their heart and all their soul; to have a
continent, vast and fertile, and possessing those means of internal
communication which gave to Europe the great superiority over Asia and
Africa; to be at such a distance from Europe that she should appear
as a map; to be mostly Protestants, and to settle in colonies with
different charters, so that, when royal authority was put down, they
were as so many independent States, and yet to be all of one metal, so
that they never ceased morally to form one nation, nor to feel as such.
You may say, “Strange, that an abuse of liberty, as this apparent or
real party strife in election contests actually is, should lead you to
the assertion that no nation is fitter for a government of law.” Yet I
do repeat it. How would it be with other nations? It would be _after_
an election of this kind that the real trouble would only _begin_; we
see an instance in South America. Here, on the other hand, as soon as
the election is over, the contest is settled, and the citizen obeys
the law. “Keep to the right, as the law directs,” you will often find
on sign-boards on bridges in this country. It expresses the authority
which the law here possesses. I doubt very much whether the Romans,
noted for their obedience to the law, held it in higher respect than
the Americans.
CARL SCHURZ
Carl Schurz, probably the most eminent of German immigrants to the
United States, was born in Rhenish Prussia, in 1829. He came to
America in 1852 and settled in Missouri, from which State he was
sent to Congress as Senator. He served as a general in the Union
Army during the Civil War. In 1875 he removed to New York City and
was editor of _The Evening Post_ from 1881 to 1884. He was active
in support of civil service reform, and as a political thinker
commanded high respect. His most notable works are his “Speeches,”
his “Reminiscences,” a “Life of Henry Clay,” and “Abraham Lincoln: an
Essay.” The last was originally published in _The Atlantic Monthly_
as a review of “Abraham Lincoln: A History,” by Nicolay and Hay.
As a tribute to the life and work of Lincoln it is worthy to stand
beside the “Commemoration Ode” of Lowell and the memorial poems of
Whitman. Both from his natural sympathies and endowments and because
of his participation in the events of the time, Schurz was eminently
qualified to write on the subject. With fine enthusiasm and yet
avoiding extravagant eulogy, he never loses sight of the essentially
human characteristics of the great President. The following passage
comprises the closing words of the essay. The selections on “True
Americanism” are taken from an address delivered in Faneuil Hall,
Boston, on the 18th of April, 1859.
AN IMMIGRANT’S TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN
To the younger generation Abraham Lincoln has already become a
half-mythical figure, which, in the haze of historic distance, grows
to more and more heroic proportions, but also loses in distinctness of
outline and feature. This is indeed the common lot of popular heroes;
but the Lincoln legend will be more than ordinarily apt to become
fanciful, as his individuality, assembling seemingly incongruous
qualities and forces in a character at the same time grand and most
lovable, was so unique, and his career so abounding in startling
contrasts. As the state of society in which Abraham Lincoln grew up
passes away, the world will read with increasing wonder of the man
who, not only of the humblest origin, but remaining the simplest
and most unpretending of citizens, was raised to a position of
power unprecedented in our history; who was the gentlest and most
peace-loving of mortals, unable to see any creature suffer without a
pang in his own breast, and suddenly found himself called to conduct
the greatest and bloodiest of our wars; who wielded the power of
government when stern resolution and relentless force were the order
of the day, and then won and ruled the popular mind and heart by the
tender sympathies of his nature; who was a cautious conservative by
temperament and mental habit, and led the most sudden and sweeping
social revolution of our time; who, preserving his homely speech and
rustic manner even in the most conspicuous position of that period,
drew upon himself the scoffs of polite society, and then thrilled the
soul of mankind with utterances of wonderful beauty and grandeur;
who, in his heart the best friend of the defeated South, was murdered
because a crazy fanatic took him for its most cruel enemy; who, while
in power, was beyond measure lampooned and maligned by sectional
passion and an excited party spirit, and around whose bier friend and
foe gathered to praise him--which they have since never ceased to
do--as one of the greatest of Americans and the best of men.
TRUE AMERICANISM
It is one of the earliest recollections of my boyhood that one summer
night our whole village was stirred up by an uncommon occurrence. I say
our village, for I was born not far from the beautiful spot where the
Rhine rolls his green waters out of the wonderful gate of the Seven
Mountains, and then meanders with majestic tranquillity through one of
the most glorious valleys of the world. That night our neighbors were
pressing around a few wagons covered with linen sheets and loaded with
household utensils and boxes and trunks to their utmost capacity. One
of our neighboring families was moving far away across a great water,
and it was said they would never again return. And I saw silent tears
trickling down weather-beaten cheeks, and the hands of rough peasants
firmly pressing each other, and some of the men and women hardly able
to speak when they nodded to one another a last farewell. At last the
train started into motion, they gave three cheers for _America_, and
then in the first gray dawn of the morning I saw them wending their way
over the hill until they disappeared in the shadow of the forest. And I
heard many a man say, how happy he would be if he could go with them to
that great and free country, where a man could be himself.
That was the first time that I heard of America, and my childish
imagination took possession of a land covered partly with majestic
trees, partly with flowery prairies, immeasurable to the eye, and
intersected with large rivers and broad lakes,--a land where everybody
could do what he thought best, and where nobody need be poor because
everybody was free.
And later, when I was old enough to read, and descriptions of this
country and books on American history fell into my hands, the offspring
of my imagination acquired the colors of reality, and I began to
exercise my brain with the thought what man might be and become when
left perfectly free to himself. And still later, when ripening into
manhood, I looked up from my schoolbooks into the stir and bustle of
the world, and the trumpet-tones of struggling humanity struck my ear
and thrilled my heart, and I saw my nation shake her chains in order
to burst them, and I heard a gigantic, universal shout for Liberty
rising up to the skies; and at last, after having struggled manfully
and drenched the earth of Fatherland with the blood of thousands
of noble beings, I saw that nation crushed down again, not only by
overwhelming armies, but by the dead weight of customs and institutions
and notions and prejudices, which past centuries had heaped upon them,
and which a moment of enthusiasm, however sublime, could not destroy;
then I consoled an almost despondent heart with the idea of a youthful
people and of original institutions clearing the way for an untrammeled
development of the ideal nature of man. Then I turned my eyes
instinctively across the Atlantic Ocean, and America and Americanism,
as I fancied them, appeared to me as the last depositories of the hopes
of all true friends of humanity.
I say all this, not as though I indulged in the presumptuous delusion
that my personal feelings and experience would be of any interest to
you, but in order to show you what America is to the thousands of
thinking men in the old world, who, disappointed in their fondest hopes
and depressed by the saddest experience, cling with their last remnant
of confidence in human nature, to the last spot on earth where man is
free to follow the road to attainable perfection, and where, unbiased
by the disastrous influence of traditional notions, customs, and
institutions, he acts on his own responsibility. They ask themselves:
Was it but a wild delusion when we thought that man has the faculty to
be free and to govern himself? Have we been fighting, were we ready to
die, for a mere phantom, for a mere product of a morbid imagination?
This question downtrodden humanity cries out into the world, and from
this country it expects an answer....
They speak of the greatness of the Roman Republic! Oh, sir, if I could
call the proudest of Romans from his grave, I would take him by the
hand and say to him, Look at this picture, and at this! The greatness
of the Roman Republic consisted in its despotic rule over the world;
the greatness of the American Republic consists in the secured right of
man to govern himself. The dignity of the Roman citizen consisted in
his exclusive privileges; the dignity of the American citizen consists
in his holding the natural rights of his neighbor just as sacred as
his own. The Roman Republic recognized and protected the _rights of
the citizen_, at the same time disregarding and leaving unprotected
the _rights of man_; Roman citizenship was founded upon monopoly, not
upon the claims of human nature. What the citizen of Rome claimed for
himself, he did not respect in others; his own greatness was his only
object; his own liberty, as he regarded it, gave him the privilege
to oppress his fellow-beings. His democracy, instead of elevating
mankind to its own level, trampled the rights of man into the dust. The
security of the Roman Republic, therefore, consisted in the power of
the sword; the security of the American Republic rests in the equality
of human rights! The Roman Republic perished by the sword; the American
Republic will stand as long as the equality of human rights remains
inviolate. Which of the two Republics is the greater--the Republic of
the Roman, or the Republic of _man_?
Sir, I wish the words of the Declaration of Independence, “that all men
are created free and equal, and are endowed with certain inalienable
rights,” were inscribed upon every gatepost within the limits of this
Republic. From this principle the Revolutionary Fathers derived their
claim to independence; upon this they founded the institutions of this
country, and the whole structure was to be the living incarnation of
this idea. This principle contains the programme of our political
existence. It is the most progressive, and at the same time the most
conservative one; the most progressive, for it takes even the lowliest
members of the human family out of their degradation, and inspires
them with the elevating consciousness of equal human dignity; the most
conservative, for it makes a common cause of individual rights. From
the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you
cannot subvert your neighbor’s rights without striking a dangerous blow
at your own. And when the rights of one cannot be infringed without
finding a ready defence in all others who defend their own rights in
defending his, then, and only then, are the rights of all safe against
the usurpation of governmental authority.
This general identity of interests is the only thing that can guarantee
the stability of democratic institutions. Equality of rights,
embodied in general self-government, is the great moral element of
true democracy; it is the only reliable safety-valve in the machinery
of modern society. There is the solid foundation of our system of
government; there is our mission; there is our greatness; there is our
safety; there, and nowhere else! This is true Americanism, and to this
I pay the tribute of my devotion.
EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN
Edwin Lawrence Godkin was born of English ancestry at Moyne, County
Wicklow, Ireland, on October 2, 1831. His father, the Rev. James
Godkin, a Presbyterian minister of literary talents, after being
forced from his pulpit for espousing the cause of Young Ireland,
became a journalist of some distinction. The son received his
preparatory education at Armagh, and at Silcoates School, Wakefield,
Yorkshire. In 1846 he entered Queen’s College, Belfast. After
graduating from this institution in 1851, he went to London to study
law at Lincoln’s Inn. After some journalistic experience in the
Crimea and in Belfast, he came to America in 1856 and settled in
New York. His real career began with the founding of _The New York
Nation_ in 1865. His connection with this journal was both long and
distinguished, and his efforts for the encouragement of a sound
and enlightened public opinion have recently been appropriately
recognized in the semi-centenary volume, “Fifty Years of American
Idealism,” edited by Gustav Pollak. He contributed many incisive
essays on political and economic subjects to various magazines.
The most important of these have been collected in three volumes,
“Reflections and Comments,” “Problems of Modern Democracy,” and
“Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy.” It is from the opening essay of
the second that the following selection is taken.
Wendell Phillips Garrison, his associate, said of him: “As no
American could have written Bryce’s ‘American Commonwealth’ or
Goldwin Smith’s ‘History of the United States,’ so it may be doubted
if any native of this country could have erected the standard of
political independence which Mr. Godkin set up in _The Nation_ and
maintained in _The Evening Post_. He did this, however, not as a
foreigner, but as an American to the core. A utilitarian of the
school of Bentham, an economist of the school of John Stuart Mill, an
English Liberal to whom America, with all its flagrant inconsistency
of slaveholding, was still the hope of universal democracy, he
cast in his lot with us, became a naturalized citizen, took an
American wife--gave every pledge to the land of his adoption except
that of being a servile follower of party.” Brilliant, thoughtful,
questioning, he was keenly sensible of the many evil tendencies
in modern democracy; yet with philosophic insight he rejected the
unsound comparisons drawn by many political thinkers between ancient
aristocratic democracies and modern democracy, which he viewed as a
new experiment and therefore to be tested by new principles and new
conditions.
AN IMMIGRANT’S FAITH IN DEMOCRACY[4]
If, indeed, the defects which foreign observers see, and many of
which Americans acknowledge and deplore, in the politics and society
of the United States were fairly chargeable to democracy,--if “the
principle of equality” were necessarily fatal to excellence in the
arts, to finish in literature, to simplicity and force in oratory,
to fruitful exploration in the fields of science, to statesmanship
in the government, to discipline in the army, to grace and dignity
in social intercourse, to subordination to lawful authority, and to
self-restraint in the various relations of life,--the future of the
world would be such as no friend of the race would wish to contemplate;
for the spread of democracy is on all sides acknowledged to be
irresistible. Even those who watch its advance with most fear and
foreboding confess that most civilized nations must erelong succumb to
its sway. Its progress in some countries may be slower than in others,
but it is constant in all; and it is accelerated by two powerful
agencies,--the Christian religion and the study of political economy.
The Christian doctrine that men, however unequal in their condition
or in their gifts on earth, are of equal value in the eyes of their
Creator, and are entitled to respect and consideration, if for no other
reason, for the simple one that they are human souls, long as it has
been preached, has, strange to say, only very lately begun to exercise
any perceptible influence on politics. It led a troubled and precarious
life for nearly eighteen hundred years in conventicles and debating
clubs, in the romance of poets, in the dreams of philosophers and the
schemes of philanthropists. But it is now found in the cabinets of
kings and statesmen, on the floor of parliament houses, and in the most
secret of diplomatic conferences. It gives shape and foundation to
nearly every great social reform, and its voice is heard above the roar
of every revolution.
And it derives invaluable aid in keeping its place and extending its
influence in national councils from the rapid spread of the study of
political economy, a science which is based on the assumption that men
are free and independent. There is hardly one of its principles which
is applicable to any state of society in which each individual is not
master of his own actions and sole guardian of his own welfare. In a
community in which the relations of its members are regulated by status
and not by contract, it has no place and no value. The natural result
of the study and discussion which the ablest thinkers have expended on
it during the last eighty years has been to place before the civilized
world in the strongest light the prodigious impulse which is given
to human energy and forethought and industry, and the great gain to
society at large, by the recognition in legislation of the capacity,
as well as of the right, of each human being to seek his own happiness
in his own way. Of course no political system in which this principle
has a place can long avoid conceding to all who live under it equality
before the law; and from equality before the law to the possession of
an equal share in the making of the laws, there is, as everybody must
see who is familiar with modern history, but a very short step.